Artist Statement

Ponga beside the WaikatoI was born in the Wairarapa, where I grew up looking at the land and I've never stopped. The first four years of my life were spent at Te Wharau in a little valley east of Masterton surrounded by hills. I still have a conscious memory of those first years and they continue to inform my perception.

I am passionately connected to the New Zealand landscape and my life as a painter allows me to continually express its effect upon me. My work is an ongoing story, a visual diary, hence my paintings are often in a sequential series and the use of both oil and acrylic offer me differing qualities which I enjoy applying to different subjects.

Over many years my ongoing journey as an artist has been refreshed by study trips to the USA and UK, Where I have been exposed to, and sometimes profoundly influenced by, local artists. This observation has become an invaluable means of refining my own ideas: the minimalism of Georgia O'Keeffe and the perspectual experimentation of David Hockney in particular. 

My most recent new series of paintings finds me inspired to include our beautiful birds.I find this to be an exciting new development which promises to take me on a whole new journey.   

Michael Moore